Millionaires reap a benefit windfall

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Thirty-one millionaire families in Australia receive the
government payment designed to give extra help to single-income
families.

The Family Tax Benefit part B, introduced at the urging of the
Prime Minister to support stay-at-home mothers, is not means-tested
on the husband's or main earner's income. As well as the
millionaires, almost 30,000 families earning more than $100,000 a
year received the payment in 2002-03.

Welfare experts yesterday said the Government was rewarding
wealthy families while at the same time considering measures to
spur sole parents and partnered parents on low-incomes to return to
work once their children turned five.

"It's unfair that rich families get $40-a-week
obligation-free... up till their children are 18 while the
Government is suggesting that poor families will have an obligation
to work as soon as their children start school," said the president
of the Australian Council of Social Service, Andrew McCallum.

The benefit has long been criticised for favouring a particular
type of family - those with one earner - regardless of need.

The Department of Family and Community Services provided the
figures after a Labor senator, Jacinta Collins, asked questions in
a Senate estimates hearing. The benefit was initially paid only
when mothers earned virtually no income from work, but under recent
changes families get some payment if the second worker earns up to
$14,400 a year and their children are aged five to 18, or up to
$19,000 if under five.

The Government is considering withdrawing the parenting payment
from sole parents and low-income, partnered mothers, forcing them
on to the less generous Newstart Allowance. At present these
parents can remain on the higher payment until their youngest child
is 16. At the same time the Government has committed to increasing
the Family Tax Benefit (B) by $300 a year.

Tables provided by the department show the number of families in
various income bands who claimed the payment of about $80 a
fortnight for children aged between five and 18, and about $114 a
fortnight for children under five. There were 2388 families with
incomes between $200,000 and $300,000 who received the payment in
2002-03.

Families on similar high incomes are ineligible for any benefit
if both spouses contribute a more equal share to family income.

John Howard has argued that Family Tax Benefit (B) compensates
single-income families for having access to only one tax- free
threshold.

The Minister for Family and Community Services, Kay Patterson,
said she expected Family Tax Benefit (B) would be considered as
part of broader deliberations on welfare changes, taking into
account whether means-testing would be cost-effective.